David Nutt: Give me ’shrooms and I’ll be good

The former drug tsar claims the law is preventing him from curing depression — with magic mushrooms

Nutt was sacked as chief drugs adviser to the government by Alan Johnson (Francesco Guidicini)

T
here are hobbits, and there are academics, and there are hobbity academics,
and the hobbitiest of all hobbity academics has to be the giggly, bouncing
David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.
He is the man who was sacked as chief drugs adviser to the government after
he said horse-riding was more dangerous than taking ecstasy.

Oh my God, he’s bonkers — in the way only West Country people really can be.
He jiggles and giggles and gives little whoops — by the end of the interview
I feel quite seasick. Even he admits he is “slightly manic” — naturally, of
course — he feels lucky that he has never had to resort to any mood-lifting
drugs, only a bit of cannabis as a student, and speed, and certainly never
horse-riding, “although I did ride a camel once”, he hoots.